Using Facebook based on constructivist teaching method to develop English writing dexterity of undergraduate students in Thailand

Abstract

The purposes of this research were 1) to study effect of using Facebook based on constructivist teaching method to develop English writing dexterity of undergraduate students in Thailand, 2) to compare undergraduate students' English writing achievement before and after writing activities, and 3) to compare English writing achievement of controlled group and experimental group. The subjects were 40 undergraduate students at Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology during first semester of 2017 academic year which derived through simple random sampling technique. The instruments used in this experiment were the pre-post English writing test, the English writing lesson plans based on constructivist and the English writing ability evaluation form. The experimental process and data collection were conducted as follows: The subjects were given an English writing ability pretest. Then, the six lesson plans were used in first semester. After the completion of each lesson, the English writing ability evaluation form was used for surveying the subjects' writing competence. The data were statistically analyzed by mean scores, standard deviation, percentage, effect size and t-test. The results were 1) English writing dexterity of undergraduate students at Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology was at good level, 2) the students' English writing dexterity after learning was significantly higher than before, with instruction constructed at 0.01 level, and 3) the experimental group's English writing dexterity was significantly higher than controlled group at 0.01 level.